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$0.5 for 2 Hours Anyone?

First things first – was looking for an image to express anger at oDesk – typed in “mad at oDesk” and found this. Loved it, and hence it’s there – it’s my blog – deal with it. Now, to the topic ….

Do you know how friggin’ hard it is to write “high quality articles with no plagiarism, that read naturally and are 500 words +”? Over 2 hours! Back to oDesk – lurking around, pouncing on decent projects that don’t have a “No Pakistanis Please” policy. It makes me furious when I see the high expectations and the price clients are willing to pay for the work. $0.5 for a 500 words article … WTH! And then they usually follow it with how its going to be a long-term assignment and they will need about a 100 articles per month. A $125 which roughly equals Rs. 11k is ridiculous even for Pakistan.

To be a good writer you must have a higher degree in English, or should be an A-Levels student at the fanciest, most elitist school that only a very few can afford in Pakistan. A typical Pakistani professional who works at a dead-end 9-5 Government job that he (notice how I am not using my favorite gender here!) probably acquired by paying a bribe to some politician is not going to be able to write a decent article fulfilling all the client’s requirements. And why in God’s name would a person with a good Master’s (yeah, we have good and PATHETIC) or a kid that goes to a school that boasts of it’s own Pizza Hut and McDonalds franchise want to work for $125 k a month?

A request to clients: it’s OK if you can get your work done for $0.5, no one is forcing these people to bid in the first place. But when they are unable to come up to your expectations please don’t trash them. After all, you get what you pay for.

OK Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

P.S. Those of you searching for “Angry Mom”, yeah you are at the right place.

Oh please do blog – the more we talk about it the better – maybe someone will listen.

That’s the thing – oDesk is a user community and it’s the users who determine how much clients pay. If they are willing to go go as down as $.5 than well it affects everyone negatively. The economy is in bad shape – hardly any jobs and graduates coming out of colleges and universities without any real knowledge of what the market demands are. Reality hits hard and they need to make ends meet so, 8 hrs a day, 30 days a week ($120) sounds better than nothing. Heart-wrenching!😦

This is so very true. And not when it comes to content writing but also software development and web designing. Apparently, the “west” folks think that we are no humans and hence we don’t require a decent money for the work we do. But the irony is, they do get their work done in the amount specified. *face palm*

I freelance and employers are so miserly! I started off to complement my pocket money but it takes a lot of hard work and the pay is low. The worst part, however, are the projects which say, no Pakistanis please. Frustrating.